A weblog examining sexual politics in higher education and beyond.

Case Western Reserve policy on consensual relationships

Case Western Reserve has developed a rather detailed consensual relationships policy for students, faculty and staff. It is essentially of the boilerplate genre, but it does include a couple of patently “absurd” statements; examples follow and then the dankprofessor comments.

Faculty, staff, and students may not use, in a sexual

harassment proceeding, a defense based upon

consent when the facts establish that a real and/or

implied supervisory power differential existed within

the relationship.

Wow! Consent is impossible in power differentiated relationships. Case has

bought into the hardcore feminist position that differential power precludes consent, no exceptions. Ideologues rule here.

Compliance

It is expected that all members of the university

community comply with the Consensual Relationship

Policy. When relationships covered by this policy develop,

responsibility for reporting the relationship falls to the

person with greater supervisory authority. Relationships

covered by this policy that go unreported will be

investigated by the Faculty Diversity Office, Employee

Relations, and/or the Office of Student Affairs.

Now this one beyond the fringe, so to speak. How can relationships that go unreported be investigated? Will the university have undercover persons on campus who will forward secretly info on suspected couples, but such will not be reported? The dankprofessor confesses to be totally baffled by this one.

Like this:

Related

When will “politically correct” institutions ever learn??
1) If real sexual harassment took place, the harassing acts are in question, not the fact that the parties may have consensually dated. For example, say a student went to dinner once with a teacher. She then didn’t want it to go any further. If the professor gave her a “C”, when she clearly deserved an “A”, THAT would constitute a transgression on part the teacher, not the fact that they had that 1 consensual dinner date!
2)If a professor/teaching assistant goes out consensually with a student, is the professor/teaching assistant supposed to “report” him/herself? What if he/she rightfully felt it was nobody’s business-just between the 2 of them? Then, as the dankprofessor says, will the university have “undercover spies” who will report personal, off campus contacts, between students & professors/teaching assistants? This sounds like the French Revolution, where even a report of questionable activities to Maximilian Robespierre could send someone to the guillotine!
It’s high time that concerned faculty members & students too sign a “Declination of Compliance” Statement. This would affirm their non-compliance with any ban on consensual dating, while at the same time denouncing actual sexual harassment!

Blog reports on and examines sexual politics in higher education with a focus on issues regarding sexual consent, particularly the attempted repression of student-professor consensual sexual relationships. Thie blog reflects a commitment to the values of liberty, freedom of association, freedom of speech and privacy; such are values that are under increasing attack, both intellectually and policy wise in all too many universities which have embraced a culture of comfort in the framework of a velvet totalitarianism.

In addition, the blog at times will go beyond the university and sexual politics to issues that merit our attention. Whatever the issue the dankprofessor blog will not be constrained by any ideological orthodoxy, sexual or political correctness. Hopefully, this blog will bring together persons who value liberty and freedom even in university life.

The dankprofessor is Barry M. Dank, an emeritus professor of sociology at California State University, Long Beach, where he taught students and engaged in various forms of professorial dissidence for some 35 years.. In his earlier years, he wrote and pontificated on issues related to homosexuality and specifically on coming out and the development of a gay identity. In 1977 he became famous/infamous for his LA Times article on the anti-homosexual campaign of Anita Bryant. Later he focused on interracial relationships and on student-professor relationships. He is the Founding Editor of SEXUALITY AND CULTURE, published by Springer NYC. During his 35 years as a professor and four years as an in-residence grad student at the University of Wisconsin, he openly engaged in propinquitous (as in propinquity) dating, dating students and having many wonderful friendships with many of his students and their families. During his early years in academia he married the daughter of a professor in the Sociology Department at the University of Wisconsin. Presently he is living in the artist village of Tubac in southern Arizona.

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